Look on the bright side

The party was hearty when the Milwaukee Brewers completed a three-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies (above), but the Los Angeles Dodgers eventually proved their undoing.

Well, that was fun while it lasted.

The Milwaukee Brewers came within one game of the franchise’s first World Series since 1982, dropping the decisive Game 7 of the National League Championship Series on Oct. 20 at Miller Park to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-1. “This team took us on an amazing journey that we should all be grateful to see,” Craig Counsell, a candidate for NL Manager of the Year, said in his post-game press conference, referring to a 19-7 September run and a postseason in which the Crew swept the Colorado Rockies in the National League Division Series and then took last year’s World Series runner-up to the brink of elimination. All told, the Brewers’ 96 regular-season and six playoff victories combined for a franchise record 102 wins.

My personal postseason journey included two trips to Milwaukee. The first, for Game 1 of the NLDS, began with my wife, Lisa, and I picking up our son at UW-Whitewater, where he is a freshman. We took him to countless Brewers games as a kid, and sharing a playoff experience with him at this point in his life felt priceless.

Three days later, Lisa and I watched Milwaukee advance to the NLCS from the second floor of a senior living apartment complex in New Berlin with my father-in-law — a widower who has struggled with serious health issues. He’s also a lifelong Milwaukee Braves and Brewers fan who gave Lisa a pair of his company’s tickets to a 1985 game at County Stadium against the Oakland A’s for our first date.

But it wasn’t only longtime fans who enjoyed this journey. After living in the Madison area since 1993, I finally noticed more people wearing Brewers apparel than Packers gear this year. That’s an indication of how much enjoyment this dynamic team gave to fans, some who probably weren’t paying attention during Milwaukee’s most recent rebuilding phase.

Here’s hoping the Brewers can maintain their newfound status as Wisconsin’s team next season, when much of the 2018 nucleus returns, including Ryan Braun, Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich (a shoo-in for the NL’s Most Valuable Player). And some stars of this year’s nearly unstoppable bullpen (Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff) could be in the starting rotation for 2019. Look for Josh Hader, who set a new single-season strikeout record for a lefty reliever with 143, to be back, too.

As Braun — the only 2018 Brewer who was part of Milwaukee’s last postseason run, in 2011 — told reporters in the clubhouse, “There are a lot of reasons for hope and optimism moving forward.”